


Only Doing Good When We're Having Fun

by veleda_k



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), White Collar
Genre: Background Sara/Neal, Crossover Pairings, F/F, Hinted Doctor/River, Time travelers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 08:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2018247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veleda_k/pseuds/veleda_k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with River stealing Sara's Van Gogh. It hasn't ended yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Doing Good When We're Having Fun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



> This is all Sholio's fault. She said she liked the idea of Sara/River, but didn't think there could be more than one fic dedicated to the pairing. WELL CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. Or, to put it more nicely, this is a present for Sholio, who said she liked this pairing. 
> 
> I took a very wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey approach to the DW timeline. River does what she wants. Oh, and the title is adapted from Joan Jett's Bad Reputation.

It wasn't what most people would call a relationship. For one thing, if you were in a relationship with someone, you usually had some idea of how to contact them. Instead, every once in a while, River showed up, usually when Sara was working a case. The first time, before Sara had even known her name, River had stolen a Van Gogh that Sara had worked for months to recover. She returned it a week later, looking just a tad sheepish, explaining that it had been the wrong one, and giving Sara a line about the fluidity of time and space, and these things happen, darling, sorry. She had smiled roguishly in a way that Sara guessed was supposed to charm her.

“At least you returned it.” Sara had said.

“Of course. And I really am sorry.” River's smile had widened, but there had also been a devious edge to it. “Let me take you out to dinner as an apology. I have reservations at Per Se.”

Sara had eyed her sharply. “How long have you been planning this?” Reservations at Per Se could take months to get. Did she have a stalker?

“I thought of it today,” River had assured Sara.

A meal at Per Se was tempting, but... “No thank you,” Sara had said. This woman was claiming to have made same day reservations at one of New York's most exclusives restaurants, which made her either a liar, or someone who promised to complicate Sara's life immensely, and Sara wasn't looking for complications at the moment.

River had just winked. “Well, if you change you're mind, I'll be around.” Then she turned a corner and was just... gone.

At least Sara had her Van Gogh back. She counted it as a win.

The second time, River had still been nameless. Sara had been working, sipping tonic water at an overpriced, over-hyped bar, watching the lead suspect in an art heist. River had sat down next to her. Sara had started. She had been keeping an eye on the entrance, but she hadn't seen the other woman come in. “You’re not lessening the stalker image,” Sara had remarked dryly. 

“Sorry,” River had said, not sounding sorry in the least. “I couldn't resist the chance to buy you a drink.”

Sara had gritted her teeth. “I'm working.”

River had looked over to Sara's suspect. “Oh, him? He has the sculpture, but he hasn't fenced it yet. He's meeting with a fence this Thursday, 9:00 AM at Hudson's Antiques.”

Sara had stared. “Are you in league with him? Is that it?” Maybe this woman was trying to get back at a partner who had screwed her over.

River had laughed. “I'm just someone with a lot of information. And I like you.”

“This could be a set up.” No one had ever called Sara the trusting sort.

“It could be, but it's not. What do I gain by setting you up? If you die, I'll never get to take you out to dinner.”

“We're not going out to dinner.”

“No? Tell you what: if my information doesn't pan out, and you don't get your man, I'll never bother you again.”

“But?”

“But, if I'm right, you and I will go to Per Se.”

There was a part of Sara that couldn't resist a challenge, a part of her that longed for risk. It had been that part of her in charge in that moment. “Fine.”

“Excellent.” River had stood up.

“Wait,” Sara had said. But her temporary companion had vanished into the crowd before Sara had a chance a to actually ask her name. 

The weird thing, Sara would think later, was that the bar really hadn't been that crowded.

Sara hadn't been sure whether or not to be surprised when, Thursday morning, nine o'clock, she found herself at Hudson's antiques, recovering her sculpture and phoning the police. Later that evening, she had been finishing up the paperwork when there was a knock at her office door. “Do I even want to know how you got past security?” she had asked.

“Never ask a lady her secrets.”

“Can I ask you your _name_?”

River had laughed lightly. “River Song.”

“At least I have something to call you now.”

“So, are we on for tonight?”

Oh right. Well, Sara had agreed. But tonight? “Short notice,” she had remarked.

“Spontaneity. You have time to swing by your apartment and get changed.”

River, Sara had mused as she hurriedly picked out something appropriate to wear, was the kind of person she didn't want to like. Sara was practical, and she liked to keep her life manageable. But then someone like River promised her chaos and adventure, and rather than saying no like a sensible person, Sara jumped at the chance.

Dinner, at least, had been as expected. The food was delicious, the atmosphere elite, and, as River had noted, nothing bizarre had interrupted the evening.

“You sound disappointed,” Sara had said.

“Not really,” River had replied. “The peacefulness means more time to get to know you. But a fight for your life does get the blood pumping.”

“I like my excitement to be a little less life threatening,” Sara had said. 

“But you do like excitement. That's what I liked about you.”

“You barely know me,” Sara had pointed out. “Unless you really are stalking me.”

“No, I've only seen you the times you've seen me.”

“So why the persistence?”

River had shrugged. “Call it a whim.”

Sara wouldn't have admitted it, but that hadn't really been what she wanted to hear. It was better than being stalked, but she didn't much like being reduced to a whim.”

“I have good instincts,” River had continued. “I pick the best people.”

Sara got a small rush of pleasure from that, but she wouldn't have admitted that either. “So, what do you do when you're not busy being enigmatic at me?” she had asked.

“I'm a professor. Of Archeology.”

“Hmm. I imagined something more exciting,” Sara had admitted. Classrooms and pottery fragments didn't fit the woman at the table across from her.

“Oh, it's more exciting than it sounds,” River had assured her. From the way she said it, Sara had been willing to believe her.

River had picked up the check, and Sara made no move to stop her. Her salary was ample, but spontaneous trips to Per Se would stretch it. 

It had come as a surprise, but Sara had genuinely enjoyed herself. “Normally, I'd ask to set up another date,” she told River. “But somehow I expect you'll just show up.”

River had brushed her lips against Sara's. “Now you're getting it.”

After that, River had appeared at random. Sometimes she'd help Sara with a job. Other times, she'd insist that she really did need whatever item Sara had been sent to recover. Sara always fought, but somehow lost every time. It wasn't a good feeling. “I do have advantages,” River told her once, as close to apologetic as she ever came. “It's not an even playing field.” In its own way, that had galled Sara even more.

But she liked River, and as much as she didn't like losing, she did enjoy the ways River tried to make it up to her, especially once River moved passed fancy dinners and jewelry as apologies to truly inventive sex toys and positions. 

They stopped having sex once Sara started dating then quickly became engaged to Brian. River continued to come around though, even if she didn't approve of Brian.

“He's normal,” Sara had tried to explain once. “I want to try normal.”

River snorted. “Well, you'll get over it.”

River was right, as it turned out. And Sara had planned to fall into bed with the other woman as soon as she saw her next. But then Neal happened. Which Sara reasoned was much the same thing. River and Neal had a good deal in common, right down to the fact that Sara had initially found them both infuriating.

Whatever River did when she wasn't entertaining Sara must have been keeping her busy, because Sara didn't see her the entire time she dated Neal the first time. But when Sara did finally see her next, it was right when she needed her. 

“I didn't trust him,” she told River, holding back tears that had no business being there. “And I knew we wouldn't last. So why does it hurt so much?”

River hugged her. “It hurts because we know it won't last. And because a part of us wants to trust them anyway.”

Sara never asked who River had been thinking of. It was enough to be understood.

The two of them took to their sexual relationship with renewed abandon. River was _fun_ , and Sara needed fun. But then of course Neal came back, and Sara began to worry she was playing with River's emotions. True, their relationship was the antithesis of commitment, but Sara still felt like it was jerking River around to keep getting back together with her ex. “We had sex again,” she informed River, about Neal. “But we're not dating, and we don't intend to get serious. It's a casual thing.” River had nodded and agreed, and it was only much later that Sara realized that River hadn't believed her at all. Which would have been insulting, if she hadn't also been right. 

Leaving New York was hard. Leaving Neal was harder than Sara would ever admit. But leave she did, and she couldn't regret it. The job was everything she had hoped it would be, and while London wasn't New York, it had a charm of its own.

After all this time, Sara wasn't surprised to step into her flat to find River waiting for her. She just rolled her eyes. “Some people knock.”

“Some people are boring, darling.”

“So? Are you here to help me out, ruin one of my assignments, or just to have sex?”

River smiled slyly. “Let's keep sex on the table. Possibly literally. But I'm actually here to ask for your help. And to give you some answers you've been wanting.”

Sara looked at her keenly. “Oh?”

 

“Ask me a question.”

“Where do you go when you're not with me? Where are you _from_?”

“That's two questions, both of which are complicated. I come from a lot of places, but these days I spend most of my time in prison.”

Sara couldn't help herself. She started laughing and couldn't stop. “Oh, god,” she said, once she finally managed to catch her breath. “I do have a thing for criminals.” It should have been more depressing than it was.

“We're dashing and exciting. As for where I go when I'm not with you, when not in prison, I go all over. And I mean that.” River lifted her wrist, which had some sort of bulky bracelet attached to it. “This is a vortex manipulator. It's a time machine, essentially.”

Sara raised her eyebrows. “I'm waiting for the punchline.”

River pressed a few buttons on the bracelet thing, and then... vanished. She was only gone for a few seconds before she reappeared and handed a Sara a newspaper dated three years from now.

Sara blinked. “Let's say I believe you. Why are you telling me now?”

River smiled her very best devil may care smile, the one that never failed to tempt Sara. “I told you, I want your help.”

“I can't travel in time.” It felt extremely strange to point out something so obvious. 

“I don't need you to. The problem is right here in London right now. There's something about 21st century London,” River mused. 

“Is it dangerous?” Sara asked.

“Yes,” River answered bluntly. “But it's also going to be an awful lot of fun.”

Sara thought about it. “All right, I'll do it.”

River kissed her. “Excellent! Let's go stop an alien invasion.”

“Wait, aliens?” But River was already out the door, and Sara could do nothing but follow her.

At least, Sara would think later, while hitting a baked potato shaped alien on the back of its head with her baton, River would always keep her entertained. That was worth something.

Whether it was worth what it was going to cost to get Sara's dress dry cleaned was another matter entirely.

But then River was laughing and shooting something, and Sara was running towards her, and that was good. For that moment, everything was good, despite the aliens.

Hell, maybe because of the aliens.


End file.
